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Jessica Thalmann, born and raised in Toronto, is an emerging photo-based artist, curator and writer who recieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from York University. Thalmann has exhibited with Gallery 1313, Whippersnapper Gallery, the Arts and Letters Club and Sleeping Giant Gallery and as also selected as a curated artist in 2009's Nuit Blanche with a project entitled Take Shelter. She has had curatorial and editorial internships at the Art Gallery of York University and C Magazine.
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Departing from Marianne Hirsch's concept of "postmemory" as a means to understand the complexities of the memories of the children (and grandchildren) of Holocaust survivors, my photographic practice aims to explore this notion of postmemory in a very personal way. As a grandchild of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, I experience the lingering effects of traumatic historical events that preceded my birth as a third generational witness.
In
Projections and
Abjections, I focused on notions of personal narratives/histories as they grow over time, and how displacement and time affects memory. Using family albums as inspiration and analog photography as my medium, I also wanted to explore the nature of a photo-based medium and its effects on memory and trauma. What is the value of photographs if they act as documents of trauma, happiness and change?